Education

On any given day, this entrepreneur can be found running his technology business from his home office, playing volleyball at East Beach, perfecting his down dog at Yoga Soup, mentoring budding industrialists, lecturing at UC Santa Barbara, and relaxing with his three cats at his Riviera home. A Midwest transplant, 35 year-old Habra

Discussions of entrepreneurship, business and finance may seem out of place and, frankly, of little interest to most teenagers during the dog days of summer. But then there are young people like Ohan Arakelian, CEO of the Dons Net Cafe, an actual youth-run enterprise, and one of a dozen Santa Barbara High School students learning the finer points of running a business when some of their peers are winding down their summer vacations. For Ohan and his fellow students, running a business is not a hobby or something just for adults.

When Kevin Diangoor graduated from the University of Michigan in 1994, he had a bachelor’s degree in computer science and the skills to get a high-tech job almost anywhere in the United States. But Diangoor, who was raised in West Bloomfield, said he didn’t consider leaving the state. Now, 7 years later, he has a tech career with the start-up Web Elite, a wife, a house in Ann Arbor and thoughts about starting a family.

Ann Arbor – There’s three hot tech programs happening this week in Ann Arbor. Entrepreneurs will learn how to better organize their dot coms, figure out CRM, and look into a noted tech journalist’s crystal ball to see whether its thumbs up, or thumbs down, for technology this year.

Only the Internet economy could transform a liberal-arts student’s hobby into a business that employs 40 people and records annual revenue of $3.4 million. When Habra was a senior majoring in English and philosophy at the University of Michigan in 1995, he realized the World Wide Web was more than an academic experiment.

Digital Detroit is aggressively trying to change Michigan’s high-tech image. Although new to the business scene, the organization threw a launch party last month that attracted more than 800 people. Jeff Sloan, chairman of Birmingham-based Digital Detroit, said he’s trying to build a community where anyone with an interest in technology can network and learn from and socialize with others who have similar interests.

Reality Check: For summaries and analysis of what presidential candidates are saying about taxes, click on www.otpr.org. That’s a Web site set up by the University of Michigan Business School’s office of tax policy research, headed by Joel Slemrod. James Hines is Research director.

University alumni and students searching for jobs now have another option right at their fingertips. The University Alumni Association’s recently updated and colorful Career Center Website appeared on the Internet last fall, replacing the center’s Alumnet page.

Unlike other students who play on computers for fun, LSA senior Jacques Habra has extended his interest in creating web pages to set up his own business. Web Elite- a collaboration with Habra, two partners and 12 other contractors who help design and create web pages for companies and organizations- has been online for more than four weeks. Habra said Web Elite is an “advertising tool” and its main function is to “provide an extension of the companies or business organizations to reach a much broader audience.”